By Brett Stayton
A wise man once said, “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball …”
By that logic, I reckon if you can dodge a Cape buffalo, you can pretty much dodge anything on the planet. That’s because Cape buffalo are arguably the baddest animals in the world thanks to their immense size, sharp hooked horns, and overall hostility towards human beings.
Recently, Cape buffalo were the topic of discussion around the proverbial office water cooler. When I said a buffalo hunt was on my bucket list, a colleague casually told me that he once almost got stomped out by a buffalo. The calmness with which he said it made me think he was just fuckin’ with me, but the actual story is pure chaos.
Hunting videographers have some of the best stories out there. For every piece of epic hunting content you watch online, a badass cameraman is recording the footage, and the perspective those guys get to witness adventures through is as raw and authentic as it gets.
Plains Game Hunt Goes To Hell
So the fella that told me this story was on assignment in South Africa filming his first safari hunt. The first few days of plains game hunting were relatively smooth sailing and successful.
But on the third day, the shit hit the fan.
Between the outfitter and the PHs, there was over 70 years of boots-on-the-ground buffalo hunting experience in camp, with more than 300 dead buffalo in the dirt to show for it. Never before in all that time had one of their safari groups experienced an unprovoked charge by the beast they call black death. Though they’d had close encounters, it was never the buffalo that started the fight.
Well, on this day, that all changed and all hell broke loose.
After a successful morning in the bush, the hunting action slowed down during the afternoon. A group of two seasoned hunters led by an experienced PH and the videographer decided to explore the thickest brush on the property in hopes of catching a herd of blesbok bedded down in the shade.
They parked the Land Cruiser and started slowly moving down a dirt road on the edge of the largest block of gnarly bushveld in the area, walking shoulder-to-shoulder four-wide.
Then, in the blink of an eye, a guttural roar erupted from 20 or so yards into the shadows, and a massive blur of darkness shot out of the brush like a rocket-propelled volcano with horns like daggers.
From there, the only words anyone can remember are simply:
“Ohhhh Fuck!”
“Run!”
Running From The Devil
Though he wasn’t filming at the time, our storyteller bolted down the road in a full sprint with camera in hand. While glancing over his shoulder, he realized that they had a giant, pissed-off beef monster running them down fast.
With adrenaline pumping and survival mode activated, he followed the PH while the sound of one of the hunters getting the wind knocked out of him echoed behind. The charging buffalo steamrolled one hunter into the ground while the other hunter dodged getting trampled by hitting a spin move that would have made prime Barry Sanders proud and then dipping into the safety and concealment of the treeline.
The movement of the videographer and the PH continuing to flee kept the buffalo angry and distracted enough to keep chasing them instead of goring the man on the ground. It was quickly closing the distance, though.
A bend in the road brought them to a patch of trees from which they could try to make a move to escape the wrath and end the onslaught.
In one quick motion, the PH pivoted in his boots and swung both barrels of his .400 Nitro double gun towards the buffalo just yards away, but the angry devil was too hot on the heels of the video guy for him to take a shot.
With the buffalo right on his ass, the cameraman ducked his shoulders down and hooked his arm around a tree with enough momentum to swing his body around the trunk while diving into the ground now behind the buffalo.
Just then, the PH let loose a warning shot safely over the back of the buffalo. Thankfully, it was enough to keep the creature on the run as it disappeared back into the trees as fast as the tornado from which it emerged.
In the midst of the fray, the cameraman somehow managed to only take a glancing blow from the side of the buffalo’s powerful horns, and miraculously the only damage was a ripped shirt, bruised lower back, and some surface-level scrapes.
We’re Gonna Need Some Bigger Guns
When the dust settled, the crew made plans to go after the buffalo. First, they were going to need some bigger guns, though. But that’s a story for Part II …
